There are moments that stay with you. The sudden shutdown. The fight that comes out of nowhere. The refusal that makes your heart race faster than theirs. From the outside, it might look like defiance, stubbornness or manipulation. But from the inside? It feels like survival. For a long time I have thought it was just anxiety, behaviour or maybe just lack of boundaries. None of those explanations fully captured what we were experiencing. We were self-critical of our parenting